An estimated 130,000 joined protest marches on 1 January against Hong
Kong’s leader Leung Chun-ying, also known as “CY”. His government is
just six months old and the New Year’s Day protests were only the latest
expression of mass anger towards the unelected government, and the
pressure is clearly mounting.

Protesters depicted CY as a wolf, a vampire, and a long-nosed Pinocchio
– due to his lying ways. The number “689” appeared on many banners –
signifying the miniscule number of votes won by Leung in last March’s
elite-only “election” from which 99.9% of the population were excluded.

They chanted “Down with Leung Chun-ying” and “Democracy now”. The
protests took place one week before an impeachment motion will be moved
by League of Social Democrats lawmaker ‘Long Hair’ Leung Kwok-hung in
Hong Kong’s pseudo-parliament, the Legco. Smaller marches consisting
overwhelmingly of elderly people were also organised on 1 January to
show support for CY. These were staged by groups linked to the ruling
‘Communist Party’ (CCP) in China. Even the police figures, which are
unreliable, say the anti-CY protests were triple the size of his
supporters’ demos.

Policing of mass protests in Hong Kong has become more restrictive and
heavy-handed, and New Year’s Day was no exception, with one-third of the
territory’s police force deployed for the demonstrations. The police
announced weeks before hand they would stop campaign groups from
erecting stalls and raising money along the march route, a traditional
way for opposition groups to win support and an important democratic
right that must be actively defended. Almost all groups ignored this
threat and set up campaign stalls.

The demonstration continued late into the night, with police cordoning
off the roads leading to CY’s house, and other areas of central Hong
Kong, in an attempt to block sections of the marchers intent on staging
occupations. At around midnight police arrested several protesters
including ‘Long Hair’ and removed tents set up by the demonstrators at
Government House.

An estimated 130,000 took part in anti-CY demos 1 January

Interest in socialist ideas

The supporters of the CWI, Socialist Action, set up two stalls to
promote the January 2013 issue of Socialist magazine and spread our
socialist message. To show how the mass of demonstrators reject the
bullyboy threats of the police against democratic rights, our stalls
raised over 31,000 Hong Kong dollars. Over 340 issues of the magazine
were bought.

Hong Kong and international media reports have made much of the
reappearance of British colonial-era flags held by some demonstrators.
This has been a trend in recent months, and CCP leaders have vented
their fury over this, as proof they say that “external forces” are
attempting to subvert Hong Kong, linking this issue to the need to pass
repressive security legislation under Article 23 of the Basic Law.

While one on hand the colonial flag has been adopted by some relatively
small groups arguing for greater autonomy and in some cases independence
for Hong Kong, but also echoing chauvinist and racist ideas against
mainland Chinese people, this trend has also be taken up by other layers
loosely connected via the internet. For the latter the colonial flag is
a way to show opposition to the government and CCP, a bit like the trend
in wearing Vendetta masks among some demonstrators. Socialists defend
democratic rights and freedom of expression, while opposing the confused
and often reactionary ideas symbolised by the colonial flag.

Socialist Action stalls met with great response

Crisis of the whole system

Rather than the personal ‘failings’ or lack of ‘integrity’ of one
politician, Hong Kong faces a crisis of the entire political system – of
capitalist leaders imposed by the CCP dictatorship riding roughshod over
the democratic aspirations of the people.

Despite its short history, CY’s administration has put hundreds of
thousands of protesters onto the streets – with 400,000 marching on July
1 when he took office, and over 120,000 in the massive battle over
national education (school brainwashing) in September. Mass protests are
likely to continue as the threat of Article 23 comes a step closer. This
threat is implicit in the appointment of hard-liner Zhang Xiaoming as
head of the Hong Kong-mainland Liaison Office and Zhang Dejiang within
China’s ruling politburo standing committee as the top man for Hong Kong
affairs. Zhang has shown himself to be a hard-liner for example as
Guangdong CCP boss in 2005, when up to 20 protesters were shot dead in
the Shanwei massacre.

Socialist magazine issue 19 – January 2013

Always and everywhere, the CCP combines the “carrot” with the “stick”
(negotiations with repression) and will try to win over or neutralise
some of Hong Kong’s pan democratic (opposition) parties by dangling the
possibility of a trade-off over the electoral rules for the 2017 Chief
Executive election. This shows the need for democratic structures –
elected committees – to organise the anti-CY mass struggle and insure
that unaccountable “leaders” do not enter into secret deals with the
government. This was unfortunately what happened with the mass “Occupy
Tamar” movement against national education.

In his scramble last March against Henry Tang Ying-yen for the required
600-plus votes, CY threw around some populist promises to tackle the
housing crisis, build more public housing and tilt policy-making in
favour of the poor. As Socialist Action warned at that time, nothing has
come of this. Some small measures (increased stamp duties for example)
have been imposed to cool the housing market, but mass-market house
prices still rose by more then 23 percent in 2012, worsening the agony
for millions who cannot afford a home.

For the poorest section of society the housing crisis already means
acute misery. The scandal of subdivided flats is far worse than
previously reported, with an estimated 250,000 people – double the
previous estimates – cramped into these tiny units. It is hardly
surprising therefore that people rage over CY’s multiple luxury homes
with their illegal construction work.

CY was installed with just 689 votes, mostly millionaires

Democratic election in 2017?

After decades of delays, lies, and manoeuvres, it is becoming harder for
the Beijing and Hong Kong elites to stonewall over universal suffrage.
Mass pressure is growing, as reflected in the hostility to CY, and this
is forcing the government’s hand to offer at least an appearance of
“progress” over the election rules for 2017 (Chief Executive election)
and 2020 (Legco elections). But this does not mean they will commit to
real universal suffrage, even on the far-from-democratic lines that
apply in Western countries, where politics is still (but more subtly)
controlled by business interests. This issue will be decided by mass
struggle in coming years.

We must be prepared for more manoeuvres and trickery as the clock ticks
towards 2017. The government on behalf of the capitalists will seek to
maintain undemocratic ‘safeguards’, albeit with some cosmetic changes,
to insure a sufficiently tight nomination threshold so that candidates
deemed undesirable never make it onto the ballot paper.

Time and again we have seen how the leaders of the right-wing pan
democratic parties have been afraid and unwilling to lead real struggle
against the government. This was the case in 2010, when they boycotted
the ‘de facto referendum’ and entered into secret talks with Beijing’s
representatives, supporting a facelift and extension for the elitist
business-based functional constituencies. For this betrayal the
Democratic Party (DPHK) especially were roundly punished in the Legco
elections held in September 2012, losing around 100,000 votes compared
with the previous election of 2008.

The mass movement against national education offers key lessons for the
next stages of the struggle against CY and Article 23. This movement had
the potential already last autumn to force CY from office. The mass
daily occupations grew beyond the expectations of the movement’s
leadership in the Civil Alliance Against National Education, which was
essentially controlled by the DPHK and its close ally the Professional
Teachers’ Union. This leadership lagged far behind the political mood of
the mass protests, which for example chanted for CY to resign and
supported the slogan advanced by Socialist Action for a citywide school
strike. The Alliance distanced themselves from these “political”
slogans, however, insisting this movement was “only” about national
education – when in fact it was a dress rehearsal for the much wider
struggle for universal suffrage, against Article 23, and to challenge
the entire rotten system.

Police cordon off central areas

The way forward

The anti-brainwashing protests could have achieved much bigger
concessions in September but for the backroom deal between the Alliance
leaders and government negotiators done over the heads of the mass
demonstrations that led them to abruptly call off the mass struggle.

Many activists and youth are today discussing ways to escalate the
anti-CY movement, with ideas about occupations and a possible return to
Tamar-style encampments. The idea of strike action, which we put forward
for schools and college students as a first step, in order to defeat the
national education plan, will again become a key question for this wider
struggle, and not only for students but for the working class whose
power to force change is much greater.

There is an urgent need for fighting organisations especially based upon
the working class, as well as democratic campaign structures to insure
that all such proposals are widely discussed and anchored among the
broadest layers of the activists. It is a question of leadership and
programme for the mass struggle – and which organisational forms best
facilitate the testing and selection of a leadership that can steer the
struggle to victory. Socialist Action will continue to play an active
part in the coming protests, arguing the need to link the democratic
struggle in Hong Kong and in China, to defeat CY and the one-party
dictatorship, with the need to build a mass workers’ party and overthrow
capitalism.

Old British colonial flag – but Britain also refused democratic
elections

This is an abridged version of the article Mass opposition to CY
growing from the latest issue of Socialist magazine. The magazine
(available in Chinese language only) can be ordered from This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..